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EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Vol. V, Issue 1/ April 2017

Impact Factor: 3.4546 (UIF)

DRJI Value: 5.9 (B+)

The Concept of Anarchy in Both Your Houses

Prof. SABAH ATALLAH DIYAIY, PhD1

English Department, College of Education/Ibn Rushd

University of Baghdad

NOOR KHUDAIER HASSAN, MA Graduate2

English Department, College of Education/Ibn Rushd

University of Baghdad

Abstract:

During the 1930s, due to the Great Depression and First World

War, American people witnessed poverty, diseases, bad economic and

political aspects. Americans way of living turned into utter confusion.

These events led to anarchy and oppression.

American playwrights revealed the miserable reality in their

plays. Committed playwrights conveyed a real picture where people

suffered due to corruption. James Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959) dealt

with the recurrent theme of anarchy in most of his plays. In his play

Both Your Houses (1933) Anderson won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for

Drama for this work which represents the struggle of a heroic

individual who confronts a corrupt system.

1 Prof. Sabah Atallah Diyaiy is a member of English Department in College of

Education / Ibn Rushd in University of Baghdad. She completed her MA and PhD

degrees in College of Arts/ University of Baghdad in American Drama. She is teaching

English drama for both undergraduate and post graduate students. She supervised and

debated many MA and PhD students. Prof. Diyaiy had number of published papers in

the academic magazines of Iraqi universities like Al-Ustath, and College of Art

Magazines. Email: [email protected] 2 MA Graduate Noor Khudaier Hassan is a Master Degree graduate in College of

Education/ Ibn Rushd in University of Baghdad. She has prepared her MA Degree in

American Drama for the academic year 2015-2016. She studied in College of

Education/ Ibn Rushd in University of Baghdad and had her BA in English Language in

2013. She is interested in both English and American Drama. She is also interested in

writing articles and researches on various literary topics. Email:

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Sabah Atallah Diyaiy, Noor Khudaier Hassan- The Concept of Anarchy in Both

Your Houses

EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH - Vol. V, Issue 1 / April 2017

243

Key words: anarchy, corruption, greed, individualism, selfishness,

romance, Maxwell Anderson.

1.1 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maxwell Anderson was born on 15 December 1888 in a small

town of Atlantic, Pennsylvania. His father, William Lincoln

Anderson was a preacher. His mother Charlotte Perrimela

Stephenson, was Irish. They moved to Andover, Ohio where his

father became a minister.3 Growing up by religious father,

Anderson recalled: ''we got to know the Bible well.''4 His

father's attitude at home was abrupt which made Anderson

dislike religion: ''I think his eloquence oppressed us a little,

because he wasn't so eloquent at home, and perhaps we rather

resented the salesmanship that went into his evangelism.''5At

the age of eight, Maxwell refused to be baptized.6 The family

lived in thirteen different places across Pennsylvania, Ohio,

and North Dakota.7

The father brought books for his children to read.

Anderson admired Robert Lewis Stevenson, James Fenimore

Cooper, and Arthur Canon Doyle.8 He graduated from the

university of North Dakota in 1908. He married Margaret

Haskett and they had three sons, Quentin, Alan, and Terence.

They set up a house in the rural community of Minnewaukan,

North Dakota. Anderson worked as a teacher at the local high

school.9 He sent a letter to a former professor dated 15

September 1912, and he said that he and his wife had become

socialists.10

They moved to California in 1913 where Anderson had a

master degree in English from Stanford University.11 He taught

at Whittier College in California. In 1917, Anderson defended a

student and he was put in jail. The student Arthur Camp,

attempted to publish a letter in the college newspaper clarifying

his reasons for refusing the draft, but the campus editors


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refused to publish it. Anderson wanted to show that the young

student had the right to speak without being oppressed. The

letter was a critique of American institutions:

I have talked with Arthur Camp very little, but in doing so

have formed a high opinion of his ability and his motives. It

takes a brave and high-spirited man to take the stand which

he has taken. He deserves to be heard on the subject which

seems important enough for him so that he is willing to

sacrifice reputation, friends, and future to uphold his views.

And where can he be heard more naturally, where should he

be more welcome, than in the columns of the paper in his

college? If there is criticism of the government in this college it

should be represented in the paper. It is a weak and shaky

government that cannot stand criticism, and it is a weak and

shaky intellect that never has any criticism to offer. If our

very colleges are to stifle thought , where is the thinking to be

done?...There is always something to run from if you are

cowared enough to run. Whatever may be thought of the

opinions of Camp, he has proved himself no cowared.12

Anderson resigned from the college, and he worked as a

journalist. He wrote an editorial for the San Francisco Evening

Bulletin criticizing the allies for putting a large war debt on

Germany. The editor refused his criticism and fired him.13 At

the invitation of Alvin Johnson, co-editor of the New Republic,

Anderson moved to New York.14 He left the Globe when he was

offered more money to work in the World.15

In the early 1920s, the Andersons were invited one

evening to hear a reading of Roger Bloomer , a play written by

John Howard Lawson. Lawson sold the play for five hundred

dollars and that amount of money made Anderson interested in

writing plays.16

Anderson's first wife Margret Haskett, died in a car

accident in 1931, and in the fall of 1933 he married Gertrude

Anthony. Their daughter Hesper was born in 1937. In 1953 she

committed suicide. His third marriage to Gilda Oakleaf in 1954

proved to be a happy one. Maxwell died in February 28, 1959.17


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245

Maxwell Anderson was a very difficult man to understand, his

friend and business partner John F. Wharton characterized the

playwright as ''mercurial'' due to his mysterious personality.18

Anderson rejected during his life to share personal information.

He wrote to Burns Mantle in the late 1920s: ''when a man

starts peddling personal stuff about himself…they should send

a squad of strong-arm worms after him, because he's dead.''19

In 1939, he published a group of essays, entitled The

Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and Papers. He

explained his reason for avoiding statements that showed his

purpose and his thoughts. He discussed the artist's place in the

universe and his relation to the national culture:

There is always something slightly embarrassing about the

public statements of writers and artists, for they should be

able to say whatever they have to say in their work, and let it

go at that, However, the writer or artist who brings a message

of any importance to his generation will find it impossible to

reduce that message to a bald statement, or even clearly

scientific statement.20

Anderson believed that a person must be free to enjoy a sense of

individualism:

Each man and woman among us, with a short and harried life

to live, must decide for himself what attitude he will take

toward the shifting patterns of government, justice, religion,

business, morals, and personal conduct. …, but no man's life is

ready made for him. Whether he chooses to confirm or not to

confirm, every man's religion is his own, every man's politics

is his own, every man's vice or virtue is his own, for he alone

makes decisions for himself. Every other freedom in this world

is restricted, but the individual mind is free according to its

strength and desire, The mind has no master save the master

it chooses.21

Anderson believed that a noble man was the man who became a

better citizen. He believed that a man who sought perfection,

was a man who believed in justice and truth:


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246

The concepts of truth and justice are variables approaching an

imaginary limit which we shall never see; nevertheless those

who have lost their belief in truth and justice and no longer

try for them, are traitors to the race, traitors to themselves,

advocates of the dust. To my mind a love of truth and justice is

bound up in men with a belief in their destiny.22

Anderson was continually changing his views. Vincent Wall

defined Anderson as an individualist, and an anarchist.23 In his

book Drama and Commitment, Gerald Rabkin called Anderson

a ''political paradox,''24 who tried to be non-political, but his

plays carried a political theme. Rabkin said:

Anderson was always a confirmed rugged individualist; he

never felt comfortable within the confines of a specific political

ideology. He distrusted and inveighed against all political

organization, whether Communist, Fascist, Democratic, or

Republican. The political man … is invariably a scoundrel and

opportunist. …, it is significant that Anderson never avoided

political issues. … most of his plays are involved with the

problem of man in conflict with social and political forces. The

persistent dichotomy which rings throughout them is a

political one: the lust for power in conflict with the desire for

freedom.25

Anderson discussed governmental corruption and social

injustice in his plays, such as Gods of the Lightening (1928),

Both Your Houses (1933), Valley Forge (1934), Winterset (1935),

The Wingless Victory (1936), and Joan of Lorraine (1946).

The theme of the individual fighting to get his free will

against authority and government was a recurrent one. For

Anderson there were three types of anarchism:26 firstly,

transcendental which is a belief in the inherent goodness of

people to believe in themselves, that society and its institutions

have corrupted the purity of the individual, but Anderson have

faith that people are at their best when truly rely on

themselves and be independent. Secondly, individualistic

anarchism in which one individual stands directly in the face of


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247

corruption, and thirdly, violent anarchism in which violent acts

are used to gain freedom from all kinds of authority in which

Anderson refuse. He was against the suppression of the

individual, and he supported the individual freedom.27

Anderson's poem, ''Sic Semper,'' (1917) showed

admiration of the Russian Revolution.28 Yet the events which

followed the Russian Revolution made Anderson believe that

revolutionaries were deceptive, and that a tyrant was always

the ruling force who took the place of the previous king:

So that is now experimentally, historically proved what the

'damn fool anarchist' [sic] are saying from [sic] a half a

century at least: The proletariat cannot become a ruling class;

it can dethrone the actual ruler and place its leaders in their

place, but in so doing the revolution would be in vain.29

Anderson believed that the Communist Party was a destructive

Party; a conspiracy that was taking place around the world.30

He joined the Group Theatre, which was founded by Harold

Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg during the Great

Depression.31 In 1931 Anderson contributed nearly two

thousand dollars to help finance the Group Theatre's first

production at Brookfield Center.32

The theatre, for Anderson, was ''a religious institution

devoted to the exultation of the spirit of man.''33 The play must

deal with the conflict of good and evil inside the heart and mind

of the character. Anderson said that:

The story of a play must be a conflict, and specially, a conflict

between the forces of good and evil within a single person. The

good and evil to be defined, of course, as the audience wants to

see them. The protagonist of a play must represent the forces

of good and must win, or, if he has been evil, must yield to the

forces of the good and know himself defeated. The protagonist

of the play cannot be a perfect person. If he were he could not

improve, and he must come out at the end of the play a more

admirable human being than he went in. The protagonist of a

play must be an exceptional person.34


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The hero must change into the better, which is the demand of

the audience. Anderson believed that the audience would not

approve an evil man: ''those who will not fight evil are rejected

on both sides of the footlights.''35 The plot of the play was

interwoven with the character. The development of the

character was the plot. Anderson depended in writing plays on

Aristotle as the source of his theory:

In discussing construction he [Aristotle] made a point of the

recognition scene as essential to tragedy. The recognition

scene, as Aristotle isolated it in the tragedies of the Greeks,

was generally an artificial device, a central scene in which the

leading character saw through a disguise, recognized as a

friend or as an enemy, perhaps as a lover or a member of his

own family, some person whose identity had been hidden.36

The only element of plot that Anderson saw was the

recognition scene. He framed a rule to guide him, he said:

A play should lead up to and away from a central crisis, and

this crisis should consist in the discovery by the leading

character which has an indelible effect on his thought and

emotion and completely alters his course of action. The

leading character, let me say again, must make the discovery;

it must affect him emotionally; and it must alter his direction

in the play.37

He wanted to revive the poetic drama. Anderson believed that a

society with too much assertion on rationalism and scientific

advancement was doomed without the use of metaphor,

fantasy, and philosophy. He believed that language needed

poetic thoughts. In The Essence of Tragedy he wrote, ''the best

prose in the world is inferior on the stage to the best poetry.''38

Anderson concluded that the best modern plays should be

written in verse. That was considered America's first dramatic

poet turned from the lyricist's art to write plays in verse. He

said that ''verse was once the accepted convention of stage.''39


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249

Anderson used poetry in the theatre. He did what everybody

thought impossible: a revival of the use of poetry in the popular

dramatic theatre, he stated that, ''I have a strong and chronic

hope that the theatre of this country will outgrow the phase of

journalistic social comment and reach occasionally into the

upper air of poetic tragedy.''40 He believed that poetry was the

best way to communicate the emotions and the dreams of a

culture. Anderson said: ;;The great poetry of Greece, of Italy

and of England is nearly all as mystic in concept and as

prophetic in tone as the Old Testament itself. Prophetic with

the eye on the distant horizon, not on the excavation in the

foreground.''41

Anderson faced an audience who did not appreciate and

understand poetic drama, still, he believed that the audience

would love the poetic drama, he said: ''But that it will involve a

desire for poetry after our starvation diet of prose I have no

doubt. … It is incumbent on the dramatist to be a poet, and

incumbent on the poet to be prophet, dreamer, and interpreter

of the racial dream.''42He had the faith that a better man was

the one who had a goal to achieve his dream.

Anderson's plays varied in their style. He was a talented

playwright. He wrote historical plays, verse dramas, comedies,

musicals, prose plays and adaptations of novels. He admired

classics, especially Shakespeare. He tried to modernize the

Elizabethan style and made it more appealing to American play

admirers. Many critics encouraged the dramatist's efforts in

that respect. Otis Ferguson, described Winterset as ''East River

Hamlet''43 Anderson obviously relied on Shakespeare's style in

several of his plays.

Anderson was a great admirer of the classics of the

Western Civilization.44 In Ann of the Thousand Days (1948), he

used flashbacks to represent Ann Boleyn's marriage with King

Henry VIII.45


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250

2 BOTH YOUR HOUSES (1933)

Both Your Houses was written in 1933. The play was first

produced in New York by the Theatre Guild. It opened at the

Royal Theatre on March 6, 1933. It was directed by

Worthington Miner and it was designed by Arthur P. Segal.46

The play ran for 120 performances, closing on May 6, 1933. It

was added in Burn Mantle's The Best Plays of 1932-1933.47

Both Your Houses was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for

Drama.48 It was a political satire where the dramatist emerged

in the role of a furious national citizen who was against the

corrupt system. It was ''the first American play concerned

exclusively and seriously with Federal political intrigue.''49

The play opened two days after Franklin Delano

Roosevelt took the Presidency on March 4, 1933. It was staged

in a time when thirteen million people were unemployed and

the country was going through ''failure on a scale

unprecedented in its history.''50

Many themes are shown in the play such as

individualism, religion, capitalism, greed, debauchery,

selfishness, hypocrisy, centralized government, and romance.51

The title of the play was taken from Shakespeare's Romeo and

Juliet, when Mercutio spoke before his death to the Montagues

and the Capulets, wished a plague to be inflicted on both

families and their political parties.52 The setting takes place in

the House Office Building, Washington, D.C. It shows life in the

Congress.53

John Mason Brown believes that the play is a criticism

of the American system. He says:

In the writing of Both Your Houses, Maxwell Anderson has got

the better not only of his subject and his audience but also of

his fellow-dramatists who in recent years have attempted to

turn the stage into a forum for the discussion of public

questions. With the calm detachment usually reserved for the

penning of drawing-room comedies, he has held up to the

patrons of the Theatre Guild as merciless and disheartening a


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251

picture of governmental corruption as anyone could imagine.

It is a shocking, bitter indictment, calculated to raise doubts

in the hearts of even the staunchest supporters of the

democratic ideal.54

The play narrates the story of Alan McLean, young

congressman from Nevada, who discovers the horrible fact of

the political life when he is chosen to the Appropriations

Committee.55 McLean notices that a number of contractors will

get a huge financial benefit by completing the Nevada dam. The

amount of money for the project is magnified. This leads the

cost of the bill from $40- million to $465-million. The bill is

fabricated with a lot of expensive and unnecessary items. He

decides to reveal the whole scheme of the committee, by

overloading the bill to be rejected.

3 BOTH YOUR HOUSES: A CORRUPT SYSTEM

Both Your Houses is a realistic play of graft in the management

of national government. It contains a flaming accusation of

American political approaches. It attacks corruption and

hypocrisy of the American government.56 It focuses on political

fraud and scheme in the House of Representatives, with the

fight over an appropriation bill. Anderson presents three main

characters: Alan McClean, Simeon Gray, and Solomon

Fitzmaurice( referred to as ''Sol'' in the play). They work as

allegorical figures to deliver Anderson's anarchistic beliefs over

the political system.

The protagonist of the play, Alan McClean is a newly

elected congressman. He resembles Anderson himself.57 He

reads Thomas Jefferson58 just like Anderson himself. The mail

man says: '' Serious. Wears mail-order clothes. Reads Thomas

Jefferson.''59 The play is an allegory where Gray represents the

''gray'' area. This means the middle ground between the two

extremes of McClean and Solomon.


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252

McClean, is a rebel. His assistant Merton describes him as

follows: ''He's straight. It never enters that head not to be

straight'' (Act I, scene i, 21). McClean's honesty and integrity

are further referred to by his last name. The cleanliness of his

character brings about the downfall of corrupt politicians.

McClean comes from Nevada and he is elected to

Congress after exposing financial corruption at the agricultural

college. He invested his own money to have his election

investigated.60 Solomon says: ''Comes from Nevada, intellectual,

reads Jefferson, having his own election investigated. Simeon,

call your meeting to order and for God's sake muzzle him. This

is William Jennings Bryan!'' (Act I, scene i, 22).

Identifying McClean with Bryan strengthens his link to

morality. Bryan, who comes from Nebraska, is known as the

Great Commoner and demands a platform to protect the

workers.

The members of the committee expect McClean to

support their decisions concerning a bill designed to provide

funds for the completion of a dam in his hometown Nevada.

Levering, one of the members of the committee says to him:

''We knew you were a sensible, reliable young man, and we put

you on the Appropriations Committee for that reason'' (Act I,

scene i, 30).

The bill is designed as a $40 million appropriation, but

with the inflation of unimportant requests it reaches $475

million. Simeon Gray, the committee chairman, tries to cut

expenses to $200 million to avoid a presidential prohibition. He

cuts it $275 million. The bill must come to a vote: ''Well, we're

week late with this bill already, and I came back yesterday for

nothing else but to get it set'' (Act I, scene i,14).

Being honest, McClean is amazed due to the shameless

dishonesty of the members of the committee. The interests of

the representatives are linked to the bill, and they must vote

through compromise and full agreement to pass the bill to their

own personal advantages. They will fight any one who stands


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253

against their financial greed. Solomon demands to get the

money as he wants to benefit from naval patronage:

The Atlantic Fleet's got to spend its summer somewhere,

hasn't it? It might just as well be at Rocky Point as at

Hampton Roads, and they'd have a damn sight better time,

too. Even the navy likes good liquor, and the girls are a hell of

a lot fresher on Long Island than down there at the naval base

where the gobs have been chasing them since 1812. We owe

something to our navy, Simeon; let 'em ashore once in a while

in a neighborhood where they won't need prophylactics.

(Act I, scene i, 18)

Gray wants to pass the bill and it reaches $475 million. This

reveals the greedy souls of the politician men of the committee.

McClean believes that the bill will be rejected because it is

overloaded, but his expectations fail as the bill passes with

enough votes to support. He vows to quit from Congress to take

his case directly to the voters.

Anderson stresses the capitalist system, that does not

think of the welfare of the people. Each member tries to get

what he wants. Laurence G. Avery points:

Everyone in the play agree on two points about the bill: 1) that

each item in it represents the personal interest of individual

legislators; and 2) that it is only these personal considerations,

not consideration for the nation's welfare, which lead to

passage of the bill. In these two respects the bill is taken as

typical of all legislation. Self-interest, therefore, is offered by

the play as the motive force in the legislative process.61

People suffer due to high taxes, lack of money, and hunger.

McClean says to Gray:

I come from an agricultural district, Mr. Chairman, where the

farmers haven't got any money, and they're taxed beyond

what they can stand already. Not only that but in the town I

come from there used to be thirty-eight stores on the main

street. There are now fifteen----because people have no money

to buy. When stores get judgments against the farmers and


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254

put up their cattle and machinery at auction, nothing is sold.

And the whole country's like that. Nobody can buy anything,

at any price. Now, I was elected and sent here because I told

my people I'd do what I could to reduce taxes and cut down

even necessary expenditures. And there's nothing in this bill

that can't be done without. So I'm against it.


The greedy government thinks only of profit. Henry David

Thoreau62 believes that '' absolutely speaking, the more money,

the less virtue.''63 Dell, one of the committee members, wants to

defend the northwestern territory form Japanese beetles

invading from Canada despite the fact that these insects are

harmless to the northern region: ''Establishing a patrol of the

Canadian border for the Japanese beetle'' (Act I, scene ii, 40).

The name ''Solomon,'' Anderson uses as an allegory to

refer to the biblical king known for his great practical wisdom.64

Solomon represents Long Island. He curses a lot , and he saves

liquor in his office. He always believes that life was better in

the past: ''In the old days, when government was government, a

couple of men could sit down over a jug of whiskey and decide

something----'' (Act I, scene ii, 10).

Many critics see Solomon as the most important

character in the play. Brooks Atkinson says that, ''Sol is the

most engaging character in the play. His blind cynicism, his

captivating dishonesty, his fulsome roguery result in comedy of

the most enjoyable brand.''65

Solomon clarifies how the American political institution

works, ''the sole business of government is graft, special

privilege, and corruption----with a by-product of order. They

have to keep order or they can't make collections'' (Act II, scene

i, 103). Solomon tells McClean about himself reflecting a severe

social fact:

I'm just an old man soaked in tobacco and fusel oil, and no

help to anybody. No if it's up to me to stop the bill, it'll pass.


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255

You never get anywhere by taking things away from people,

Alan. You've got to give them something.

(Act II, scene i, 103)

The government gains power by keeping people together.

Fredrick Jackson Turner, thinks that individualism is

dangerous when it is taken to the extreme: ''Individualism in

America has allowed a laxity in regard to governmental affairs

which has rendered possible the spoils system and all the

manifest evils that follows from the lack of a highly developed

civic spirit.''66 Gray affirms that the American political

incantation is ''every man for himself----and the nation be

damned'' (Act III, scene ii, 176). Solomon approves the

individualistic character of the establishment:

Do you want me to point you the road to prosperity? Loot the

treasury, loot the national resources, ...Brigands built up this

nation from the beginning, brigands of a gigantic Silurian

breed that don't grow in a piddling age like ours! They stole

billions and gutted whole states and empires, …built

everything we've got and invented prosperity as they went

along! Let'em go back to work! We can't have an honest

government, so let'em steal plenty and get us started again.

Let the behemoths plunder so the rest of us can eat!

(Act III, scene ii, 176)

Solomon argues in favor of individual competition in a free

society, which shows the basics of government.

Reinhold Niebuhr pointes to the idea that Americans

have a trust in competitive individualism. They believe that

competition can save the economy even though ''power and

privilege are centralized in the hands of a few more consistently

in our economy than anywhere else in the world.''67

Solomon is a Machiavellian68 character who is the most

bold and realistic character in the play. Anderson uses the

character of Solomon to draw a picture of how the political

machine turns an honest citizen into a corrupt politician.


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256

Solomon's illustration of innocent, honest people who become

corrupt by the government mirrors Ralph Waldo Emerson's

affirmation that ''the fairest names in this country in literature,

in law, have gone into Congress and come out dishonored.''69 So

Solomon tries to enlighten McClean by explaining, how the

American political institution works:

Everybody wants something, everybody's trying to put

something over for his voters, or his friends, or the folk he's

working for. So they all get together, and they put all those

things in bills, and everybody votes for'em. All except the

opposition. They don't vote for'em because they don't get

anything. That's all there is to it. That's the whole

government. Is that crooked?

(Act I, scene ii, 54)

McClean replies to him with affirmation, Solomon, shocks his

hearers by agreeing with the young idealist. He says:

Yes, and it happened to me too, and I was shocked and started

making radical remarks. Why, before I knew where I was I

was an outsider. I couldn't get anything for my district, I

couldn’t get recognized to make a speech----I couldn’t even get

into a poker game. My constituents complained and I wasn't

going to be re-elected. So I began to play ball, just to pacify the

folks back home. And it worked. They've been re-electing me

ever since.

(Act I, scene ii, 55)

In such speech by Solomon, Anderson pinpoints holiness with

the tradition of the American republic. He refers to President

John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (1872-1933) who considered the

factories to be holy temples of worship during the 1920s: ''The

man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works

there worships there.''70Money changers controlled the temple,

so the religion of democracy becomes a contaminated concept.

But the atrocity comes from the money changers, not the

temple and the concept. Democracy fails when it falls under the

influence of greed.


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257

Solomon explains to him: ''Don't you know about the

government of the United States?... You can't do anything in

Congress without arranging matters'' (Act II, scene ii, 54). This

first act statement shows the whole theme of the play. At the

end, Solomon explains that the political institution is an

institution of loot: ''We can't have an honest government, so

let'em steal plenty and get us started again'' (Act III, scene ii,

176).

Anderson, again refers to paradox in the system; the

members need to secure re-election to do their work. The re-

election, means securing graft, which causes suffering to the

country. Thoreau observes that, the rich members of society

are ''always sold to the institution which makes them rich.''71

Anderson reveals that once the members become corrupt, they

can no longer break the cycle of graft that makes them wealthy.

McClean attempts to win Solomon over to his case, the latter

rejects him:

You're counting on me! I'd better tell you about myself, boy,

before you say any more! Long ago when I was slim and eagle-

eyed, I had a good angel. You wouldn't believe it to look at me

now, but old Sol had a good angel by his side back there in the

morning of time. And when a question like this came up this

angel of light would come shouldering round him, arguing for

righteousness, arguing against evil courses and the selling of

his soul. If I was going to do wrong I had a wrestle with that

angel. Like Jacob of old I wrestled with him in the night , and

like Jacob of old I often came out ahead.


Anderson humanizes the corrupt congressman to reflect the

insistence of the capitalist system upon the individual.

Solomon represents an essential part of Anderson's

message. He shows that the cooperation between capitalism

and government affects not only the existence of the individual,

but leads to the corruption of the human spirit.


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258

Gray represents the most conflicting character in the play. He

lives in his district Culver, but he does not identify the state he

comes from. He works as a chairman of the committee for

fifteen years. Solomon points to him as ''the watch-dog of the

Treasury'' (Act I, scene ii, 41). Gray works on the board of

directors of the last working bank in his district. The bank

benefits from the completion of a penitentiary included in the

appropriations bill. Its failure would result in a huge scandal

that would lead to his imprisonment.

Gray appears to be a politician yielding to the

temptations of demoralization and corruption. Still Anderson

justifies him by making the situation beyond his control. The

arrangements are made while he is away. The penitentiary is

linked with many other projects. Therefore, Gray becomes a

victim of the political system. His character shows how honest

people are destroyed by the political institutions.72

With the committee arguing over who gets what pieces

of graft, Gray continues to beat the proposal to fund the

Japanese beetle patrol. This request is put forth by farm-labor

unions to create jobs for peasants. Gray thinks that he has

enough votes to pass the bill without their support.73 The

farmers are the only losers.

The conflict between Gray and McClean, shows the

struggle between the needs of individual districts against the

needs of the whole nation:

Gray. …I grew up in Culver and I know the people there----

the storekeepers and the professional men and the people in

the street. I know them by their first names----and I know

what they've been through. They've lost nearly everything

they had. Business is gone and two banks have failed. The

third one's mine, and people think it's sound, and what money

is left is in it. But the bank isn't sound; and if the bill's

defeated and the penitentiary doesn't go to Culver, the bank

will fail, and a lot of people will lose their life savings and

their jobs.


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Alan [McClean].74 But, Mr. Gray, isn’t it a little unfair to

support Culver by taxing other places which are just as badly

off?

Gray. Yes, it is unfair! But I'm here to represent a certain

district, McClean, and they need what I can do for them as

they've never needed it before.

(Act II, scene ii, 134-135)

Gray tries to find a way to correspond selfish personal needs

with republican values. Turner assumes that American

democracy is ''strong in selfishness'' and that it leads

''individual liberty beyond its proper bounds.''75

Anderson makes the character of McClean stand for

Everyman. Levering, the party member, is eager to meet

McClean to coach him. McClean, however, rejects Levering's

advice and complains to Marjorie about him: ''I could bring

myself to dislike him. I don't like taking orders and I don't like

his face'' (Act I, scene i, 33). This assurance is similar to

Emerson's argument, ''[W]hoso would be a man must be a

nonconformist.''76

McClean does not embrace anarchistic and anti-

American ideology. When Marjorie asks him if he is ''a wild

radical,'' (Act I, scene i, 35) he replies: ''No, just a farmer'' (Act I,

scene i, 35). A farmer rebels in December 1932. He serves to

link farmers with radicalism. Two hundred farmers

representing twenty-six states respond to uncontrolled

property with an organized protest in Washington. Dorothy Day

observes , that these farmers are not socialist radicals, but

patriots who identify their cause with the American

revolutionary cause. One of the commissioners says that:

We are going to demand aid, and if we do not get it, we are

going to resort to united and direct action. We are drawing up

a declaration of independence just as was done back in

1776.Now we are fighting not one king, but many. We have to

fight the banks, the lumber trusts, the insurance companies,

the food trusts, the railroads and the milk trusts. The old


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260

American army fought without uniforms and without proper

arms, and they were finally victorious. We are going to fight

too.77

Anthony Rosenberg, the leader of the protest, announces: ''We

aim to avoid bloodshed. We come here to seek emergency

legislation. But if nothing is done for us we will act on the

conviction that the rights of the individual are above all man-

made laws.''78 Rosenberg's words, resemble Jefferson's

composition in the Declaration of Independence. Like

Jefferson, Anderson identifies the farmer as the inheritor of the

American tradition.79

McClean soon finds himself in a dilemma due to his

position on the bill. Solomon and Gray clarify that the system

works by virtue of individual members quarrelling with each

other. McClean believes that the American political system is a

difficult one:

It puts me in a sort of hyphenated position, because I realize I

owe it to the people who elected me to put the dam through.

But I also ran on an economy platform, and that concerns the

whole country. I've been thinking about it a good deal and the

two things just don't go together. But I guess I'll just have to

decide that for myself


According to the religious foundation of the play, Anderson

visualizes McClean as Christ. He symbolizes the messenger

that will save the hearts of sinners. McClean starts a crusade

against the political institution. His efforts lead one of the

representatives, Wingblatt to call him ''little Jesus McClean''

(Act III, scene i, 146). McClean gives a sermon to the cheaters

in hope of turning them back towards the path of

righteousness.80 He says to Solomon:


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261

Sol [Solomon].81 There's a simple formula for deciding what's

right and wrong in politics, lad. It comes down to one rule!

God's always in the money. He don't lose.

Alan [McClean]. But suppose God's changed sides! The thing

you'd better start worrying about is that you're going to wake

up some morning and find yourself an old man----and not only

old, but out----down and out.


Solomon's idea of connecting God with money reflects the

governmental power encouraged by Alexander Hamilton:

'['M]oney is with propriety considered as the vital principle of

the body politic.''82 On the other hand, McClean's effort to turn

the old money changer represents an attempt to invent a new

order.

McClean shocks everyone at the committee meeting by

suggesting that the whole appropriation bill should be dropped.

He says that spending no money is better than leaving the

country without money to support unimportant projects.

McClean chooses to reduce taxes. McClean discovers that to

secure the votes he must get himself in the same brand of deal-

making. He attacks a system that will not permit an honest

compromise, '' [T]he world he enters is wholly corrupt and he

finds it impossible to operate without dirtying his own hands-a

fact which leaves Anderson in a curious ideological position at

the end of the play.''83

McClean's last speeches foreshadow the problem. The

tone of his announcement suggests decision; but what it really

includes is a confession of a conflict between himself and his

environment; he is unable to confront the contradiction in his

mind. What reliefs McClean is that a hundred million of people

are as sickened as he is, and are ready to change their world.84

McClean shows his faith in people:

More people are open-minded nowadays than you'd believe. A

lot of them aren't so sure we found the final answer a hundred

and fifty years ago. Who knows what's the best kind of


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262

government? Maybe they all get rotten after a while and have

to be replaced. It doesn't matter about you or me. We had a

little set-to here over a minor matter, and you've won, but I

want to tell you that I'm not even a premonition of what you're

going to hear crashing around you if the voters who elect you

ever find out what you're like and what you do to them. The

best I can do is just to help them find out.


Anderson's play is a warning to people, whom Solomon

considers indifferent and passive, to wake up and rebel against

the corrupt government. In McClean's parting speech, he

suggests that a second revolution is expected after fifty years.

Anderson suggests that any corrupt system maybe

impenetrable to change without revolution.85 McClean words

reflect his anarchistic character:

I'm not the person to give you a warning. I'm not a politician.

I'm a Nevada school-teacher. I don't know your tricks—you

showed me that tonight, and I won't forget it. But I didn't lose

because I was wrong. I lost because I tried to beat you at your

own game----and you can always win at that. You think you're

good and secure in this charlatan's sanctuary you've built for

yourselves. You think the sacred and senseless poured into the

people of this country from childhood will protect you. It won't.

It takes about a hundred years to tire this country of

trickery—and we're fifty years overdue right now. That's my

warning. And I'd feel pretty damn pitiful and lonely saying it

to you, if I didn't believe there are a hundred million people

who are with me, a hundred million people who are disgusted

enough to turn from you to something else. Anything else but

this.


Choosing adequate government officials was necessary to assert

the capability of people to rule. McClean wants to improve the

corrupt system.86 Anderson compares the American Congress to

Hitler's tyranny at the time and links this oppression to


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263

capitalist avarice, which shows how Napoleon stands for a class

that seeks wealth above all other things. He uses royal images

that distinguish European from American ideas.

Bus compares Congressional members to old tyrannical

leaders like Napoleon and Alexander the Great,87 telling

McClean that ''you're up against a gang of professional empire

wreckers. If you added up the conquerors of all time, from

Alexander to Napoleon, the lump of what they got wouldn't

touch what's dragged down annually by this gang out of our

treasury'' (Act I, scene ii, 67).

McClean does not desert American ideals. Being accused

of communism, he says: ''I'm not a red! I don't like communism

or fascism or any other political patent medicine!'' (Act III,

scene ii, 175). Anderson does not adopt a new system. Rather,

the play criticizes moral defect that has corrupted a possibly

respected system. Morgan Y. Himelstein argues that the play

does not include the communist reviewers because of the

dramatist's ''anarchistic point of view.''88

Anderson also presents a glimpse of criticism of gender

ideology which is a social realism during the 1930s. There are

only two women in the play who are secretaries, which

strengthen the condition of women employment. He also creates

one female politician member: Bes McMurtry. McMurtry's

reason in the committee is the financing for nurses to assist in

the ''dissemination of birth control information and

contraceptives'' (Act I, scene ii, 38). She discusses this matter

because men are obligated to stay at home due to

unemployment with women who don't know any way to provide

protection for themselves. This heightens the country's poverty

by creating ''even more mouths to feed'' (Act I, scene ii, 39).

McMurtry's insistence upon the urgency for birth control is

general social issue. Her character stands and shows support

for feminine causes. She reflects how a female is treated in a

male dominated society.


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264

Anderson's personal political thinking reached to a level that he

believed that all kinds of governments are the same ; corrupted,

as Tench, a character in his play Valley Forge said: ''Well, when

it comes to governments you'll have to let me out. They're all

alike, and have one business, governments, and it's to

plunder.''89 Stark Young was among the few critics who

acknowledged the importance of the play, assuring that Both

Your Houses was ''perennially apropos in the case of our

government.''90

Anderson criticizes democracy because it is based on the

decisions of the ignorant majority whose lack of wisdom and

knowledge can make a democratic institution an unbalanced

and unreasonable chaos. He scowls upon the political system of

the United States of America that arbitrates a system of

representatives elected by the ignorant majority.91 Anderson

fights with the equilibrium between mass governance,

individual liberty, and selfish interests within the inherent

restraints of the capitalist economy.

The most distinctive statement by Anderson on the

relationship between government and people they govern came

into sight in his preface of his play Kinckerbocker Holiday

(1938):

The gravest and most constant danger to a man's life, liberty

and happiness is the government under which he lives…. I

believe now, that a civilization is a balance of selfish interests,

and that a government is necessary as an arbiter among these

interests, but that the government must never be trusted,

must be constantly watched, and must be drastically limited

in its scope, because it, too, is a selfish interest and will

automatically become a monopoly in crime and devour the

civilization over which it presides unless there are definite

and positive checks on its activities.92

Anderson considered the government as the natural enemy of

the people. He believed only in the power of the individual, he

declared a skeptical mistrust of all kinds of governments; even


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265

democratic ones which is inherently exposed to corruption by

power. But in fighting dictatorial force that itself abolish

freedom, but Anderson defended democracy as the best form of

government, he revealed that if any harm appears then it is

from the men who run the government.93 Anderson concludes

that honesty has no place in the American system.

CONCLUSION

The term ''anarchy'' refers to a world of chaos, hostility, riot,

and turmoil. Anarchy is a form of social life which provides

liberation of the individual's mind and heart from the control of

religion, property, and government. It portrays a social aspect

based on free social norms.

Anarchists refuse any dominion which deprives them of

their freedom. They are against oppression, tyranny, and

exploitation. Americans question the validity of all forms of

state power. Their aims are to create self-managed society,

achieve human rights, and social injustice.

Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959) wants to delete the

consciousness of oppression to replace it by a free one. He did

not support war as an anarchistic tool. His plays comment on

contemporary social problems. Anderson attacks the oppression

of the government such as the New Deal.

His plays focus on governmental corruption and social

injustice. They represent his belief in individualism, the

freedom of people as well as his opposition to authority and

revenge. They depict the corrupt nature of powerful individuals

such as judges and monarchs. Anderson distrusts any

authority. He defends individual integrity. His rebellious

nature appears from his childhood in his refusal of baptism.

Anderson's play, Both Your Houses deals with rebellious

individual fighting corrupt people, and system. He seeks

justice and freedom of self and society. Anderson believes that


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266

every man must have a goal to achieve. In Both Your Houses, a

congressman fights a corrupt system.

In Both Your Houses, though McClean is a free man, he

does not prevent the bill from passing. Both Your Houses

reveals the effect of human greed upon the American republic.

It shows an individual who fights against a corrupt system of

congressmen.

Like Anderson, Alan McClean refuses the exploitation of

people. He believes that the future will be better in the hands

of men whose opinions are like his own. Solomon Fitzmaurice

represents the higher quality of human change. He is the only

character who speaks and acts in terms of social reality. He

reflects realistic social life. Simeon Gray is corrupted due to

harsh reality. In Both Your Houses, there is individual anarchy

in which one person stands in the face of a whole corrupt

system.

NOTES

3 Alfred S. Shivers, Maxwell Anderson, ed. Sylvia E. Bowman

(Boston: Twayne, 1976), 18. 4 Laurence G. Avery, ed., ''Anderson Memoir,'' in Dramatist in

America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958 (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 1977), 304. 5 Ibid. 6 Alfred S. Shivers, The Life of Maxwell Anderson (New York:

Stein and Day, 1983), 7. 7 Shivers, Maxwell Anderson, 19. 8 Avery, 304. 9 Shivers, Maxwell Anderson, 23. 10 Avery, 3. 11 Shivers, Maxwell Anderson, 24. 12 Shivers, The Life of Maxwell Anderson, 55.


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13Maxine Block and E. Mary Trow, eds., Current Biography:

Who's News and Why, 1942 (New York: Hw Wilson, 1942), 18. 14Avery, 13. 15 Bruce Bliven, Five Million Words Later: An Autobiography

(New York: John Day, 1970), 120. 16 Maxwell Anderson, ''A Confession,'' New York Times,

December 5, 1954. 17 Avery, 322. 18 John F. Wharton, Life Among the Playwrights: Being Mostly

the Story of the Playwrights Producing Company (New York:

Quadrangle, 1974), 27. 19 Burns Mantle, American Playwrights of Today (New York:

Dodd, Mead, 1929), 71. 20 Maxwell Anderson, The Essence of Tragedy and Other

Footnotes and Papers (Washington, D.C.: Anderson House,

1939), 17. 21 Ibid., 19. 22 Ibid., 22. 23 Ibid., 24.

24 Vincent Wall, ''Maxwell Anderson: The Last Anarchist,''

Sewanee Review 49, no. 3 (July-September 1941): 339. 25 Gerald Rabkin, Drama and Commitment: Politics in the

American Theatr of the Thirties (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1964), 280. 26 These types of anarchy appeared in the following plays: The

Buccaneer (1925), First Flight (1925), Outside Looking In

(1925), Gods of the Lightening (1928), Both Your Houses (1933),

Valley Forge (1934), High Tor (1936), Kinckerbocker Holiday

(1938), and Journey to Jerusalem (1940), Barefoot in Athens

(1951).

27 Herbert Brutus Ehrmann, The Case That Will Not Die:

Commonwealth vs. Sacco and Vanzetti (Boston: Little Brown,

1969), 342. 28 Shivers, The Life of Maxwell Anderson, 50.


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268

29 Brian Jackson, The Black Flag: A Look Back at the Strange

Case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (New York:

Routledge, 1981), 214. 30 Elia Kazan, Mi Vida: Memorias de un testigo excepcional de

los tiempos dorados de Broadway y Hollywood (My Life:

Memoirs of an exceptional witness to the golden times of

Broadway and Hollywood) (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 1990), 503. 31 Harold Clurman, ''The Theatre of the Thirties,'' Tulane

Drama Review 4, no. 2 (December 1959): 3. 32 Nancy J. Doran Hazelton and Kenneth Krauss, eds., Maxwell

Anderson and the New York Stage (New York: Library Research

Associates, 1991), 28. 33 Maxwell Anderson, Off Broadway: Essays About the Theatre

(New York: William Sloane, 1947), 28. 34 Ibid., 25-26. 35 Ibid., 34. 36 Anderson, The Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and

Papers, 13. 37 Ibid., 7. 38 Ibid., 34. 39 Quoted in Oscar Cargill et al., New Highways in College

Composition, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,

1955), 589. 40 Anderson, Off Broadway: Essays About the Theatre,48. 41 Anderson, The Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and

Papers, 51. 42 Ibid., 35-36. 43 Otis C. Ferguson, ''East River Hamlet II,'' New Republic 89,

no. 1154 (January 1937): 386. 44 Mary M. Colum, ''Life and Literature: Revival in the

Theatre,'' The Forum 95, no. 6 (June 1936): 345. 45 Allan Lewis, American Plays and Playwrights of the

Contemporary Theatre, Rev. ed. (New York: Crown, 1970), 141.


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46 Emory Lewis, Stages: The Fifty Year Childhood of the

American Theatre (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969),

70. 47Heinz-Dietrich Fischer and Erika J. Fischer, eds., Drama /

Comedy Awards, 1917-1996: From Eugene O'Neill and

Tennessee Williams to Richard Rodgers and Edward Albee

(New York: K. G. Saur, 1998), 12:1. 48Anne Spiselman, review of Both Your Houses, by Maxwell

Anderson, Greenhouse Theatre Center, Lincoln Ave., Hyde

Park Herald, November 5, 2014, http://

hpherald.com/2014/11/05/review-both-your-houses-2/ (accessed

September 14, 2015). 49 Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, and Donald McNeilly,

Vaudeville Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers

in America (New York: Routledge, 2007), 1:629. 50 Barrett Harper Clark, Maxwell Anderson : The Man and His

Plays (New York: Samuel French, 1933), 28. 51 Winthrop D. Jordan, The United States: Brief Edition, 2nd ed.

(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), 362. 52 Barbara Lee Horn, Maxwell Anderson: A Research Production

Sourcebook (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996), 20. 53 Ibid. 54 Drama For Students, ''Both Your Houses,'' Encyclopedia.com,

http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-2694100015/both-

your-houses.html (accessed October 3, 2015). 55 John Mason Brown, Two on the Aisle (New York: W.W.

Norton, 1938), 210. 56 Stanley Hochman, ed., McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World

Drama, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), 141. 57 Gholmerza Sami, Ragged Individualism: America in the

Political Drama of the 1930s (Bloomington: Arthur House,

2011), 27. 58 Thomas Jefferson (born April 13, 1743, Shadwell, Virginia;

died July 4, 1826, Monticello) Author of the Declaration of

Independence and the Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom,


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270

third president of the United States, and founder of the

Universi5ty of Virginia, unleashed the aspirations of a new

America as no other individual of his era. As public official,

historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his

country for over five decades. He inherited a big estate from his

father, he began building Monticello when he was twenty-six

years old. Three years later he married Martha Wayles Skelton.

Jefferson inherited slaves from both his father and his father-

in-law. In a typical year, he owned about 200 slaves, almost

half of them under the age of sixteen. He freed two slaves in his

lifetime and five in his will and chose not to chase two others

who ran away. All were members of the Hemings family; the

seven he eventually freed were tradesmen.

Terri DeGezelle, American Symbols: The Thomas Jefferson

Memorial (Mankato: Capstone Press, 2004), 4-8. 59 Maxwell Anderson, Both Your Houses (New York: Samuel

French, 1933), Act I, Scene i, Page 21…… All subsequent

references to this play are taken from this edition. 60 Mabel Driscoll Bailey, Maxwell Anderson: The Playwright as

Prophet (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1957), 60. 61 Laurence G. Avery, ''Maxwell Anderson and Both Your

Houses,'' North Dakota Quarterly 38, no.1 (Winter 1970): 8. 62 Henry David Thoreau was born on his grandmother's farm,

on Virginia Road, in Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817, the third

child of John and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau. He studied Latin

and Greek grammar for three of his four years in college. He

also took courses in mathematics, English, history, and

intellectual philosophy. He knew himself to be a writer from the

time he graduated from Harvard. He had begun keeping a

journal in 1837 and had started writing essays, reviews, and

poetry. Thoreau expressed his belief in the obligation of the

individual to determine right from wrong. He encouraged

people to assert their individuality, each in his or her own way.

He also believed that independent, well-considered action

comes naturally from a questioning attitude of mind. He was an


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271

explorer, of both the world around him and the world within

him.

Elizabeth Witherell and Elizabeth Dubrulle, ''Life and Times of

HenryDavidThoreau,''Library.ucsb,http://thoreau.library.ucsb.e

du/thoreau_life.html (accessed October 10, 2015). 63 Henry David Thoreau, The Essays of Henry David Thoreau,

ed. Richard Dillman (Albany, NY: NCUP, 1990), 25. 64 Brooks Atkinson, ''Sins of Both Your Houses,'' New York

Times, March 12, 1933. 65 Brooks Atkinson, ''Maxwell Anderson Attacking Politics in

Both Your Houses—Revival of 'The Cherry Orchad','' New York

Times, March 7, 1933. 66 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History

(New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967), 32. 67 Reinhold Niebbuhr, ''Catastrophe or Social Control? The

Alternatives for America.,'' Harper's Monthly, June 1932, 114-

115. 68 Machiavellian is a conduct or philosophy describes a person,

based on the cynical beliefs of Niccolò Machiavelli 91469-1527)

whose name is synonyms with deception and duplicity in

management, statecraft, and conspiracies. Born in Florence,

Italy, Machiavelli was its second chancellor and in 1513 wrote

the book The Prince that discusses ways in which the rulers of a

nation state can gain control and power. Although The Prince

contains some keen and practical insights into human behavior.

Debra L. Nelson and James Campbell Quick, Organizational

Behavior: Science, The Real World, and You, 8th ed. (Mason,

Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2013), 144. 69 Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo

Emerson, ed. Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson (Athens:

University of Georgia Press, 2005), 224. 70 Quoted in David R. Farber, Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and

the Triumph of General Motors (London: University of Chicago

Press, 2002), 94. 71Thoreau, 25.

http://thoreau.library.ucsb.edu/thoreau_life.html



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72 Shivers, 97. 73Burns Mantle et al., The Best Plays of 1932-33 and the

Yearbook of the Drama in America (New York: Dodd, Mead and

Company, 1933), 14:5. 74 McClean is the name used throughout the analysis of the play

Both Your Houses. Alan is the first name that is used in the

play's dialogue. 75 Turner, 32. 76 Ralph Waldo Emerson, ''Self-Reliance,'' in Essays and English

Traits: Emerson, ed. Charles W. Eliot, vol. 5 of The Five Foot

Shelf of Classics (New York: Cosimo, 2009), 66. 77 Dorothy Day, Writing from Commonweal, ed. Patrick Jordan

(New York: Liturgical Press, 2002), 39. 78 Ibid., 41. 79 Bailey, 59. 80 Maxwell Bloomfield, Peaceful Revolution: Constitutional

Change and American Culture from Progressivism to the New

Deal (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 109. 81 Solomon is the name used throughout the analysis of the play

Both Your Houses. Sol is his nickname which is used

throughout the play's dialogue. 82Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay,

''Concerning the General Power of Taxation,'' in The Federalist

Papers, ed. Jim Miller (New York: Dover Publications, 2014),

137. 83 C. W. E. Bigsby, A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century

American Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1982), 1:147. 84 Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. Hartig, eds., The Facts on File

Companion to American Drama, 2nd ed. (New York: Infobase,

2010), 75. 85 Edmond M. Gagey, Revolution in American Drama (New

York: Columbia University Press, 1947), 155. 86 Robert Thomas Wilson, Narrative of Events during the

Invasion of Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte and the Retreat of


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273

the French Army, 1812, ed. Herbert Randolph (New York:

Cambridge University Press, 2013), 116. 87 Morgan Y. Himelstein, Drama was a Weapon: The Left-Wing

Theatre in New York, 1929-1941 (New Brunswick: Rutgers

University Press, 1963), 225. 88 Maxwell Anderson, ''Valley Forge,'' in Three Plays by Maxwell

Anderson: Joan of Larraine, Valley Forge, and Journey to

Jerusalem, ed. George Freedley (New York: Washington Square

Press, 1962), Act I, scene iii, Page 136. 89 Stark Young, review of Both Your Houses, by Maxwell

Anderson, New Republic 74, no. 956 (March 1933): 188. 90 John Howard Lawson, Theory and Technique of Playwriting

(New York: Hill and Wang, 1960), 148. 91 Sami, 35. 92 Nancy J. Doran Hazelton and Kenneth Krauss, eds., Maxwell

Anderson and the New York Stage (New York: Library Research

Associates, 1991), 41. 93 Ibid., 47.

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to Jerusalem, edited by George Freedley, 93-207. New

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5. Avery, Laurence G. , ed. ''Anderson Memoir.'' in

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6. ______. ''Maxwell Anderson and Both Your Houses.''

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